


all we are

by moonatoms



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 06:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonatoms/pseuds/moonatoms
Summary: The ticking stopped. Her mind kept spinning.He was back. Again.And she had no idea what that meant.





	all we are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Antarctic_Echoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antarctic_Echoes/gifts).



> For Antarctic_Echoes, who is an amazing, supportive friend and always there. You are one of the best people I know.
> 
> While I was going through prompts, I found this one and decided it would fit: "Don't leave. Everyone always leaves."

_all we are and all we are_

_we are just like oxygen_

 

 

 

The clock on the wall was ticking, the sound cutting through the silence incessantly, _tick, tock_. _Tick, tock_. It echoed in her head, a dissonant soundtrack to her thoughts that were spinning around her head in dizzying circles.

 

A beat passed, then another until finally, unable to take it any longer she lifted her head from where it had been focused on the nothingness of the white wall of her kitchen, her hand moving out of its own volition to grab one of the onions she had been in the process of cutting for dinner. It hit the clock with a loud thud.

 

The ticking stopped. Her mind kept spinning.

 

He was back. Again.

 

And she had no idea what that meant.

 

 

* * *

 

A light drizzle was coming from the dark grey skies, tiny pricks of coldness that dug into her skin. She shivered, pulled her jacket closer around her and froze at the sight of the building now looming in front of her. She didn’t know what had made her come here tonight. She felt raw, as if she’d been opened up from the inside and it hurt, she hurt.

 

He’d disappeared again. Ever since the first time he had vanished without a word and returned married he’d been off, more off than usual. It was only in retrospect that she realized how much and how little at the same time he had opened up to her since they first started working together, and how much it had lessened since he had waltzed back into her life.

 

More than once she had asked herself why he had returned at all, the distance between them suffocating in its own way, but then she’d catch him looking at her in those rare moments that his guard was let down and there was so much pain in there and so much longing at the same time and she didn’t understand, didn’t understand him but somehow she _did_.  

  
There was so much beneath the surface, a story branching out underneath his skin like the roots of a tree, hidden from the world, from her.

 

She wished he would tell her. It hurt to know that he didn’t trust her, not fully.

 

And then, when she had been on the verge of giving up on this, whatever it was that they were, tangled messes of limbs and thoughts, when she had finally accepted that they would never be more than fleeting touches of _real_ in the seas of something that was at most a friendship and even less on some days, he had called her and told her that he wanted to tell her everything. That he wanted her to understand.

 

She had waited for him all evening, eyes focused on the clock as she went through menial tasks, tidying up the apartment and clearing out her closet, scrubbing the kitchen counter and vacuuming the floor, her eyes drifting back to check the time on her watch, the faint ticking of elapsing time reverberating in her brain.

 

But he hadn’t shown up. Instead he had disappeared. His car still parked in the garage of the hospital the only trace of him that was left behind.

 

She’d wanted to believe it was different than last time. The first few nights, she spent hours going over the security footage. Of the hospital, of Lux, of any other place that she could think of until her eyes were tired and she fell asleep at her desk, the image of him smiling while talking to her on the phone burned into the backs of her eyelids.

 

She stopped after that. It was no use. Just like last time, he clearly did not want to be found. And she didn’t have the energy, not again.

 

And yet, she couldn’t let it go. She went through her days like she was on autopilot, trying to focus on anything but him, _this_ , the entire mess her life had become. Work, dinner, reading to Trixie at night. Sometimes people would drag her out. She’d sit in a bar with Maze, Linda and Ella and cling to her piña colada, wishing it was the glass of Scotch she’d never liked. She’d go to the seaside with her daughter, watching as she built castles out of sand and tried not to let the colour of the water take her back to a different beach.

 

She was fine, she was moving on but she wasn’t and it was too slow.

 

And then he came back. She’d been in the process of making dinner when Maze’s text had come through. The rest of the evening had passed in a blur. She’d forgotten the salt and overcooked the pasta and had almost dropped a plate on the way to the dishwasher.

 

“Go see him, Decker”, Maze had said finally, watching her clean the table with window cleaner. “You clearly have some things you need to talk about.”

 

 _Did they?_ She thought to herself as she glanced up at the building she hadn’t been to in weeks. _What would she even find when she got to his penthouse? Another wife?_ She’d seen him unhinged and she’d seen him put together, but the spectrum in between was large and she didn’t know what she could deal with tonight.

 

But she also knew that this, whatever she was doing, they were doing, could not go on like this. One way or another, they did have to talk. She was just afraid of how it would end.

 

She was just afraid _that_ it would end.

 

 

* * *

The penthouse was silent when she’d finally made her way up. Faint light was illuminating the room, casting it more in shadow than colour and she hesitantly stepped into the warmth, eyes finding first the piano and the bar in the corner and then the balcony. The doors were open, wind and rain coming in from outside, but he wasn’t there either. Still, she couldn’t help herself but let her feet carry her to the railing, hands curling around the wet material as she looked out into the night sky.

 

The muted sound of bare feet on marble floor had her turn around; her eyes meeting his as he stood in the doorway, tall and frozen like a statue.

They didn’t say anything, eyes focused intently on one another until finally he spoke.

 

“Detective”, he said slowly, unsurely. The sound of his voice broke her out of her haze and set her feet in motion, but she hesitated just before she could reach him.

 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” she asked quietly, didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t avert his gaze but his eyes lost focus for a second, the dark orbs becoming hazy at her question.

 

“Something happened”, he answered finally. “Something I had no control over. I did intend to come by and talk to you, I just needed more time to come to terms with this…newest development.”

 

She laughed bitterly at that, the sound angry and hollow at the same time as it echoed through the air around them.

 

“I can’t do this anymore”, she whispered then, shaking her head sadly. “You can’t go jerking me round like this. It’s…it’s too much.”

 

He didn’t reply, but when her eyes found his again, she could see the pain in them.

 

It wasn’t enough. Her lips curled in the way that only sadness could make you do, her feet moving towards the elevator before she could think about it.

 

“There are some things I myself don’t understand.” His voice stopped her in her tracks. “And there are some things I am not sure you will understand.”

 

She whipped around at that, anger blazing in her eyes at his words.

 

“You won’t even try”, she almost shouted, fist opening and closing at her sight as she tried to hold onto her rapidly slipping control.

 

“You keep leaving and then coming back, you keep opening up an inch just to close me out again. You don’t trust me, Lucifer and it’s…”, her voice broke and she bit her lip, forced the lump in her throat to stay down.

 

“It’s fine”, she whispered bitterly. “But I can’t do this anymore. It’s not doing me any good. We’re not doing each other any good. And I…”

 

Her eyes closed on a breath before they opened again to catch his, blue orbs dark and clear.

 

“I think we should end this, whatever this is. Partnership, friendship, I don’t even know. You need to find someone you can trust and I…”, she took a deep breath. “I need to learn to let you go.”

 

Tears had gathered at the corner of her eyes now, a thin sheen of them coating her cheeks. She bit her lip, teeth digging into the skin angrily, leaving a red mark behind while her fingers curled into tight fists by her side. Her mind was turning, neurons firing incessantly and it was all too much, she couldn’t, didn’t want to give him a chance to reply, to destroy whatever hold she still had on her emotions. So she spun on her heels quickly, her feet once again finding the way towards the elevator before he could reply.

 

This time it was his hand that stopped her and his voice that broke her.

 

“Don’t leave”, he said, pleaded. “Everyone always leaves.”

 

Her heart beat inside her chest, pieces and shards of something that had not been whole in a long time. She lifted her head slowly, found him inches from where she was standing, illuminated by the faint light behind him. His hand had fallen away from her arm but his eyes held on, dark and pleading.

 

“Give me a reason to stay then”, she whispered.

 

He didn’t answer for a second, turned around instead and she deflated on a sigh. But then he turned back towards her and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of burnt red skin and sunken-in eyes.

 

“I…” she started, trailed off before she could finish a thought that had never been. He shrunk back into himself and it was the sight of him, looking red and angry and yet smaller than he’d ever been that spun her into action.

 

Before she could think about it she had crossed the miniscule distance between them and had framed his face beneath her hands, felt the inhumanely hot skin beneath her fingertips and the way in which he canted into her touch, as if nobody had ever voluntarily laid their hands on his devil face. There was fear in his eyes, fear and longing and so much else, but none of it was evil. None of it was the face of the devil as he had been painted by the Church, by humanity for thousands of years.

 

“It’s all true”, she sighed. “You’re…”

 

“The devil”, he finished gravely, his skin returning to its normal colour, every line of his body long and rigid like he still expected her to run at any second.

 

She wouldn’t. Not when she knew everything that he was and everything that he wasn’t.

 

“Even if you are, you’re not evil”, she said quietly but with finality. Then: “why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“Because I didn’t want to lose you.” His voice was more subdued than she’d ever heard, painted in nothing but honesty and fear.

 

“I couldn’t bear the thought of it. You’re…”, he broke off. “You’re important to me, more important than I ever thought possible.”

 

He was looking away now, withdrawn into a shell that she didn’t know he had. Her heart contracted painfully in her chest. Letting her hands fall away from his face, she moved them down to his shoulders and pulled him close, buried her nose in the crease of his shoulder and breathed him in.

 

“Oh Lucifer”, she whispered gently. “Of course I wish you’d told me sooner but you are not going to lose me.”

 

His arms came around her, chin coming to rest on top of her head as he chuckled darkly.

  
“I will”, he said, sounding so final and heartbroken.

 

He was clinging to her now, as if she would disappear if he gave her just an inch of space and she lifted her head as far as she possibly could with him curled around her like this.

 

“Father put you in my path”, he continued slowly. “He had Amenadiel bless your mother so you’d be born. Whatever…whatever you think this is between us is just an illusion.”

 

Pushing him back just a little, she let her eyes meet his, had to close them for a second against the onslaught of emotion.

 

“Is that why you’ve been pulling back? Why you went to Vegas?” she asked and he nodded silently.

 

“Oh Lucifer”, she reiterated. “I wish you would have just talked to me.”

 

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she softly put her hand on his shoulder and used it to guide him inside and towards the couch. She waited until he was sitting next to her before firmly clasping his hand in hers.

 

“What I feel for you is just that.”

 

He looked up at her at that, eyes dark and pained and yet so hopeful and she squeezed his hand, fingers tracing delicate patterns on the soft skin.

 

“You became important to me for who you are and what you’ve done for me. Nobody manipulated me into liking you. I think you’re a good man and that’s why I like you. That’s why I wanted to be with you.” Smiling sadly, she gave his hand another squeeze. “And if you would have just talked to me I could have told you exactly that. Might have saved us quite a bit of emotional turmoil.”

 

He pulled her into him and she followed willingly, let him wrap his arms around her and seek out the comfort he so clearly yearned for. When her eyes found his this time he leaned forward, pressed his lips to her softly, questioningly and she let him. She pulled back only after a few seconds, let her fingertips trail along his jaw gently.

 

“There is a lot we still need to talk about”, she whispered and he nodded slowly. “And honestly, Lucifer, no more secrets. This will only work if you trust me, and I trust you.”

 

“I do”, he said without hesitation and this time she believed him.

 

“Okay then”, she replied simply. Sitting up a little bit, she leaned back against the couch cushions. “Where did you go during those last few weeks?”

 

He sighed, sat up a little straighter himself.

 

“I’m…honestly not sure”, he replied earnestly. “I did not lie, Chloe, I really did intend on coming to see you after our phone call, but someone knocked me out.”

 

She gasped. “But there was nothing on the security footage. I checked after you disappeared”

 

He raised his eyebrows at that, but didn’t really look surprised.

 

“The advantage of being a celestial, I’m afraid”, he said and she leaned forward a bit.

 

“You think someone celestial kidnapped you?” she inquired and he nodded.

 

“I don’t just think so, I’m sure of it. First of all because I woke up in the middle of the desert with no memory of how I got there and no tire tracks in sight.” He didn’t react when she gasped again, eyes focused on a point far beyond the glass windows and the night sky. “Secondly because I woke up with these.”

 

Before she could ask what he meant by _these_ , two large, white wings had unfolded from behind him. Her left hand came up to cover her mouth while her right hand stretched out of its own volition, eager to touch the feathers that looked softer than down. She stopped herself just before she could touch them, looking down sheepishly.

 

“Sorry”, she whispered and he shook his head.

 

“It’s alright”, he said with a faint, encouraging smile. “You can touch them.”

 

Her fingers had buried themselves in the smooth feathers as soon as he had finished his sentence and she moved them along the rim gently, relishing in the way they felt on her skin and in the sigh that escaped his lips at her movement.

 

“They are beautiful”, she stated, completely in awe. It took a few seconds before her brain finally caught up with her.

 

“Wait, haven’t you always had these though?”, she asked, flummoxed. “Those were the ones you were looking for during that case, weren’t they?”

 

He shook his head.

 

“Those were my old wings”, he explained. “I had Maze cut them off when I came to Earth. I didn’t want to be tied down by them anymore and I wanted to cut off my connection to Heaven. Call it another act of rebellion if you will.”

 

“What happened to those?” she wanted to know, still thoroughly distracted by the wings on his back.

 

“I burned them”, he said simply and her head whipped up to meet his, fingers stopping their movement.

 

“You burned them?”, she asked incredulously. “But why?”

 

“They were a burden more than they were a gift”, he replied with a sigh. “I had fallen from His grace long before, I didn’t need a reminder of who I used to be.”

 

She leaned closer, her fingers resuming their movement and he canted into her touch, sighing again as she careful stroked the feathers.

 

“And what about these?”

 

His fingers caught hers mid-stroke and he pulled her close, buried his face into the crease of her neck, breath warm and mellow against her skin.

 

“I don’t know. Why He decided to give them back to me or what I am going to do about them” He breathed into her clavicle. “There isn’t much I know for sure right now.”

 

The way he held her, gentle and strong and secure all at the same time gave her no doubt as to what he _was_ sure of. It filled her stomach with fear and made her heart beat faster. He was right, there was so much uncertainty. There was so much they still needed to talk about. And what they were up against far transcended anything she’d ever known. But she thought back to the past months and how miserable she’d been. They’d been. And let her gaze trail down towards the man, devil, who was holding onto her for dear life, seeking out whatever love and comfort she could give him and she knew, she knew that she couldn’t let this go. She’d known before, during weeks spent worrying and mourning something that had never been. Her world had tilted on her axis tonight, but it hadn’t been as stunning as one would have expected it to be. In retrospect, all the little clues and puzzle pieces had finally added up. She’d already seen part of the picture before, it hadn’t been so shocking to see it all come together. It would take time getting used to. And part of her was still angry at how he had handled the situation. But what would she have done if she was him?

 

If all she’d ever been told was that she was evil? If she finally had something she maybe wanted just to find out it was potentially all just a ruse? She didn’t know. After all she had never been in that kind of situation. Up until a year ago her life had been simple. Filled with the happenings of human life, but nothing compared to this.

 

She didn’t even want to imagine what it was like for him.

 

Everything was uncertain in this world and so were they and what would become of them, but right now they were here. Despite all of the curveballs thrown at them they were here and it had to count for something. And for the first time in a long while she was feeling content. Her life had just become infinitely more complicated but it had also unraveled in one way.

 

She knew what she wanted. She didn’t know _how_ to get there yet, but she knew what she wanted.

 

Leaning forward, she pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, watched him sigh slightly at the gesture.

 

“We’ll figure it out, together.”

 

And when he leaned up and kissed her again, warm and soft and full of promises neither knew if they could keep, she smiled into it, let her hand rest over his heart, felt the steady beating of it vibrate through her and echo in her head, one, two. _One, two_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "All we are" by Jonah.


End file.
